Karnal leaders skip Tanwar's march, attend Hooda's rally

Prominent Congress leaders of the district skipped state Congress president Ashok Tanwar's protest march against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) policies on Sunday to attend another rally by the rival faction in Jind district.

Rajya Sabha member and former union minister Jairam Ramesh was invited by Tanwar to address party workers at Indri, 35 km from Karnal. But former legislators and party functionaries preferred to attend a parallel Congress rally convened by former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda at Kandela in Jind district. The thinly attended meeting addressed by Ramesh at Indri turned out to be a "nukkar sabha".

Former Indri legislator Bhim Sain Mehta remained absent at today's meeting. However, former Congress legislator from Shahabad in Kurukshetra Anil Dhantori and a few local Congress leaders took part in the protest march.

Tanwar had started the "Kishan Mazdoor Samvad Yatra" to meet all sections of society to know their plight during the BJP government from Yamunanagar on Friday. The march will culminate at Karnal on Monday.

In his address, Tanwar termed the formation of the Manohar Lal Khattar government in Haryana an unfortunate political development that needed to be amended by voters at the right time.

"People are fed up with shallow promises of the BJP government. The government is directionless and the poor and farmers are feeling cheated," said Tanwar.

He also alleged that there were large-scale irregularities in awarding compensation to farmers for the crop loss. "While the real sufferers are deprived of compensation, the non-eligible affluent individuals got the lion's share through unfair means," he said.

Tanwar said that he would invite Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi to meet the poor and farmers of Haryana for the "true assessment of the BJP's misrule in the state".